The young woman who came to the Avalon Center in Williamsburg a few years ago needed help. She’d left her home country and traveled to Virginia at the behest of a man who said he loved her and wanted to create a life with her. Instead, she found herself physically and emotionally trapped in his home, forced to cook, clean and have sex with him on demand — or face the consequences.

“He told her he’d go to the authorities about her being here illegally,” said Teresa Christin, executive director of the Avalon Center, an organization that serves 11 localities in greater Williamsburg and the Middle Peninsula, offering emergency shelter and resources to domestic violence and sexual assault survivors. “She couldn’t speak English, only Spanish, and was totally unfamiliar with the legal system here. She was completely at the mercy of someone who was exploiting her every day.”

The woman sheltered at Avalon, where staff are also trained to identify and assist sex and labor trafficking victims, for about six months before returning to her country. Her experience unfortunately wasn’t rare: Although Christin doesn’t think Williamsburg and the surrounding region is a hotbed for sex trafficking, labor trafficking has been a big problem there. 

Last year, authorities uncovered the largest labor trafficking case in Virginia history, criminally charging the leaders of a cleaning business that forced 100 Salvadoran immigrants — all of them just 14 to 25 years old — to live and work in a Williamsburg warehouse. One teen “often worked 11-hour overnight shifts before going to school in the morning,” reported WAVY.

Human trafficking, a modern form of slavery in which perpetrators force victims to perform labor or sex acts, is a growing problem across the country, including in Virginia. 

It’s hard to pinpoint how many children and adults have been trafficked in Virginia, because data to inform the answer is spread across several local, state and federal agencies. Bipartisan legislation in the 2019 General Assembly created a statewide sex trafficking response coordinator position to study, track and report annually on human trafficking prevalence in Virginia. The role was also tasked with making recommendations to eradicate trafficking and working with relevant state agencies, health care providers and social service organizations to develop anti-trafficking standards and training. 

According to the coordinator’s most recent report, 6,420 adults and minors were arrested between 2012 and June 2022 “for assisting or promoting prostitution, for prostitution, and for human trafficking—commercial sex acts.” Other data sources tally the human cost: From 2007 to 2021, the National Human Trafficking Hotline identified 3,573 victims (children and adults) involved in 1,689 cases of human trafficking in Virginia. The most common venues for sex trafficking in the commonwealth, the Hotline found, are businesses that front as massage parlors or spas, while labor trafficking often occurs in domestic settings. 

Sadly, these figures and details don’t show the full scale of the problem, because not every trafficking incident is reported or prosecuted. Nor does the arrest and prosecution of perpetrators end the suffering: Trafficking survivors may be plagued by fear and insecurity, and be left with lasting mental and emotional damage.  

It’s alarming to know that while there is no set profile or characteristics of trafficking victims, the people most often exploited are from already marginalized communities or in vulnerable positions.

Transitions Family Violence Services, based in Hampton, was the lead victim service agency that helped the survivors in the Williamsburg labor trafficking case by working in tandem with the Hampton Roads Human Trafficking Task Force and Samaritan House. Transitions’ Executive Director Sanu Dieng noted by email that in addition to the Williamsburg case, the organization has served 23 survivors of trafficking since 2020. They were a mix of men and women whose ethnicities varied from Asian to Caucasian to Black to Latino.

Traffickers target youth who are homeless or habitual runaways, or who have been involved in the juvenile justice or child welfare system, the U.S. Department of Justice notes. People lacking legal immigration status, Black people and others of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, migrant workers and people with disabilities or substance use disorders are also frequently ensnared. People who fall into two or more of these categories are at even greater risk. 

But even if you aren’t in any of those categories, you could still become a victim, or someone you love could. Nor does it matter if trafficking victims are here illegally, because whatever their citizenship status, all people have a right to safety, shelter and freedom from attacks on their wellbeing. Trafficking is not an issue any of us should shut our eyes against; the suffering of some should be an incentive to action for all.

To our lawmakers’ credit, Virginia’s legislative response to human trafficking has been robust in recent years. The state funded the development of the Virginia Analytics System for Trafficking (VAST), a platform that collects data from multiple agencies to determine where, when and how often trafficking is happening here. This information allows a more streamlined response to the problem, but VAST requires additional funding and technical development before it can be used more widely. 

Several measures in this year’s legislative session attempt to further efforts to uncover, prevent and correct the serious harms of human trafficking.

House Bill 581 would require commonwealth’s attorneys to create multidisciplinary response teams to determine how communities deal with sex and labor trafficking and review best practices for trauma-informed care that centers victims during the evidence gathering process. 

Another measure likely heading to the governor’s desk would require private security company employees to undergo training to recognize and report signs of human trafficking. 

House Bill 633 enacts stiff criminal penalties for labor traffickers, adds labor trafficking to anti-racketeering rules in state code and defines labor trafficking as a barrier crime that precludes offenders from working as caregivers to children, senior citizens or disabled people. 

Three interesting bills: labor trafficking, city council salary caps and employee retaliation

These bills and authorities’ efforts to curb human trafficking are laudable, but it also takes the vigilance of everyday citizens to make a lasting impact. If you see something, say something: Send human trafficking tips to Virginia State Police by texting 847411 (type VSP and then your tip). You can also contact your local social services office, or call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or text HELP to 233733. 

While legislators do their part, a simple text or phone call from the rest of us could prevent many men, women and children from being abused and exploited in Virginia.